Table 1.

NM23-H1 and its M. musculus, D. melanogaster and C. elegans counterparts participate in three main processes linked to the metastatic cascade

	Organism	Factor	Regulated pathways	Function and biological role	Citation
Migration and invasion	Human tumor (e.g. breast, colon, oral, hepatocellular carcinoma and melanoma) cell lines	NM23-H1	Rho - Rac1 signaling MAPK/SAPK and PI3K/Akt pathway downregulation Gelsolin hPrune EDG2 MLC TGFβ	Inhibition of cell motility and invasion	[67–70] [71–73] [28] [75] [76–77] [73] [78] [79]
	D. melanogaster	AWD	FGFR PDGFR/VEGFR	Tracheogenesis and border cell migration	[82] [84]
	M. musculus	NM23-M1		Increased incidence of lung metastases in NM23-M1 KO mice prone to develop hepatocellular carcinoma	[66]
Proliferation	Human breast carcinoma cell line	NM23-H1	Suppression of Ras-MAPK signalling through KSR	Proliferation	[37] [104]
	C. elegans	NDK-1	Activation of Ras-MAPK signaling through KSR	Vulval development	[99]
Apoptotic engulfment and phagocytosis	Human macrophages (primary cell culture)	NM23-H1		Phagocytosis of zymosan and IgG-opsonized RBCs	[122]
	M. musculus bone marrow-derived macrophages	NM23-M1		Engulfment of apoptotic thymocytes	[122]
	C. elegans	NDK-1		Apoptotic clearance of embryonic and germ cells	[121] [122]

Three main processes (cell migration and invasion, proliferation, apoptotic engulfment/phagocytosis) linked to the metastatic cascade where NM23-H1 and its homologs in model organisms play an important role. Biological functions and the molecular background are also indicated if known. Related citations are listed. See details in the text